Da Costa broke the ten-year-old marathon world record in 1998 in Berlin, having been fifth-placed in the previous year. The record had been held by Belayneh Densamo from Ethiopia at the Rotterdam Marathon in April 1988.^[1] The record fell in the following year, almost eleven months later. During his record run Da Costa also was the first man to officially reach the 40 km mark under two hours. He arrived at the 40K split in 1:59:55.^[2]

The youngest of eleven children, Da Costa became a national hero after winning the internationally competed São Silvestre Brazilian road race (15 km) in 1994. The same year he won the 5,000 m in the Ibero-American Championships entered by south-western European, Central and Southern American countries. From 1997, aged 27, until 2003 Da Costa achieved top-20 results in four marathons, however unlike most marathon record holders, did not win any international marathons apart from his world-record-breaking run.

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